Phantoms
by Satchit
Summary: Post-War fic. Harry is troubled by the phantoms of the people he lost during the Battle of Hogwarts. Oneshot intended as a warm up exercise.


Phantoms

It was a little hard for Harry to believe that the War was over. After running and hiding and fighting for his life for so many months, his body still hadn't settled down to the steady rhythm of peacetime. He was currently occupying Bill's old room on the third floor of the Burrow, and his body would often do strange things, like lurch out of bed at three in the morning, wand raised in defence. Nightmares were frequent, but the memory that had kept recurring all his life, of his mother protecting him from Voldemort's Killing Curse, had never returned. This time, there floated up visions of the dead from time more recently past. They were like the spectres that had emerged from the Resurrection Stone on the night of the Battle of Hogwarts; more solid than ghosts, but not quite people either. Only this time, they did not support him, but chastised him, each a mistake he had made which had cost someone their life.

Sirius appeared often, his expression trapped in the animal-like laugh that he had died with. "Why didn't you use the mirror?! Why did you believe what you saw, when you knew Voldemort was inside your head?!" he would roar, "You're a fool, just like your father!" It was this barb that hurt Harry most, because the truth remained even after the words were gone. His father too had not paid attention to what lay around him, to Pettigrew, the wolf in rat's clothing.

Others among the dead spoke to him. Lavender Brown told him that she didn't have to suffer the horror of being eaten alive by a werewolf, that she could have had a future and a happy life if she had not joined the DA, had never met him. Hedwig silently reproached him for not having saved her life like he would have any other friend. Severus Snape taunted him for being an incompetent and lazy child, resenting him for having lost nothing, when he had lost everything, even his own life, in defying the Dark Lord. Snape's voice often accompanied Harry's other memories, pointing out when his resolve balked that he himself had walked to his torture at the wand of Lord Voldemort all for the love of a woman lost to him forever, a woman who had not loved him back even in life. Fred Weasley was also a frequent apparition, his face made frightening by an uncharacteristic grimace as he tried to work out how to break free of his spectral prison and rejoin his twin, only to fail again and again.

Harry would find himself sitting up in bed, drenched in sweat and clutching his scar. It had never hurt him since that day, but like the phantoms he would see, so too would he feel phantom pains, only to have them dissipate when the waking knowledge washed over him that the piece of Voldemort inside him had been destroyed. It was curious how he had never known he was a horcrux all his life, but now that he was liberated, he felt like all the casualties of the War had made horcruxes of him, little pieces of people that lived on and sometimes screamed.

"Hallows, not horcruxes," he muttered like a mantra. Tonight, the visions of Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks had visited him. Tonks had first blamed him for not having saved them, for snatching away a mother's chance to raise her child, and for damning a child to a life never knowing his own parents. Remus took the opposite tack, chastising Harry for driving him back to his wife and son's side instead of allowing him to join Harry in his hunt for the horcruxes, where his knowledge of Defence Against the Dark Arts would have allowed them to track and destroy the horcruxes faster and arrive at Hogwarts prepared to face Voldemort. Harry's foolish sentimentality had led to unnecessary bloodshed. How, Remus asked accusingly, could Teddy have a better life when he was fated to have his parents' love for months instead of years?

Harry's mouth was dry. He needed water. He needed air. He got out of bed, and made his way out of Bill's old room and downstairs to the kitchen. In the dark kitchen, he found a jug and drew himself a chair. He poured himself a glass of water, and gulped it down clumsily. Water dribbled down his front, but it was a relief in the hot night. He poured himself another, feeding his throat and his nightshirt in equal amounts.

Suddenly, a gleam caught the corner of his eye. It was Mrs. Weasley's clock. Harry had left Hogwarts a few days after the Battle, and had been caught in a whirlwind of press reporters and well wishers, almost indistinguishable in their zeal both to ask questions and shake his hand. It had been an exhausting experience. Harry had neither wanted to answer questions nor have his hand shaken. His patience snapped its tether when he began to be invited for parties and feasts. He had retreated to the rebuilt Burrow. It was a sanctuary. There were no bad memories of the Burrow. The Weasleys mourned Fred, as he did, and they did not have cause to disturb him or, except at mealtimes, even see him. It was at some point then that Harry had noticed that he and Hermione had been added to the clock.

Now the clock winked at him in the moonlight. He stared at it. All the Weasleys', and Harry's and Hermione's, hands pointed to Home. All the Weasleys', except Fred's and George's. The clock had removed Fred's hand from its face, while George's hand oscillated between Home and Mortal Peril. Harry remembered Fred's face as it was in life, joyful, full of laughter. Strangely, Harry found his thoughts turning to Teddy Lupin.

Harry heard a sound behind him. He had left his wand upstairs. But he lowered his gaze when he saw Ginny, the hem of her nightgown swaying gently in the night air. She murmured a single word, "Harry," and enveloped him in a soft embrace.

It was Love, Harry decided, that told him that the War was over. Love that was fearful and desperate before, was now capable of reassuring. It was a world filled with love that Remus had helped build for his son. Harry grew up in a world where a parent's love was an artefact or heirloom left to you rather than something real seen or felt everyday. Teddy too would have to grow up without knowing the love of his parents, but just like Harry had found friends, and a godfather, and a family who took him in as their own, Teddy would discover a world of love. Harry resolved to add Teddy's name to the clock, and ensure that it would point, for many years as yet unseen, to Home.

Author's notes  
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This story is just a writing warm up for me. I had originally intended it to be just about how the hands of the clock pointing to Home told Harry that the War was over, but as I wrote, it turned out quite differently. Reviews always appreciated.


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